Yesasia.com Makes My Head Hurt

First of all, it’s not Martin Luther King Jr. Day quite yet, so I did technically beat my absurdly generous deadline for a new post. Hold the applause, please.

Anyway, today’s topic is essentially just me jabbering on about a less than ideal experience I recently had with, you guessed it, yesasia.com. I say “less than ideal” on purpose, rather than something like “terrible” or “Shear angry! Shear smash!” because I do not consider it to be entirely to their express discredit. In retrospect, what happened to me, though unfortunate, was not so egregious as to call gross incompetence or foul play, and for the most part their company dealt with their fault and my concerns quite well. I think I’m not so much outraged as I am still fuming over not getting the outcome I was hoping for.

I should probably outline the details about what actually happened before I go on ranting about how I feel about it. I’m a big fan of the manga and now anime series Omamori Himari (CR got the license–Shear angry!) and I heard somewhere that the limited edition release of the 6th volume in Japan was going to come with a special DVD. Granted, it would be region 2 and it’s probably readily available on the internet, but I decided to look for it anyway. Some searching led me to yesasia, and the price seemed more than fair. The item description, however, was just garbled romaji, so I sent a customer service request to make sure that I was getting the limited edition with the DVD.

I had a reply in my inbox by the following day, something that quite impressed me. It informed me that the item did indeed include the DVD, but that stock was limited and I should order right away. I immediately did so, including a CD I had been eyeing because it brought me over their free shipping minimum by a few cents. All seemed perfect…

…until I got the email informing me that the manga volume was being canceled from my order due to its being out of stock. Had this happened the next day, or perhaps the day after, I would have understood. Exact stock figures are finicky, and this sort of thing happens. But it wasn’t the next day. Or the day after. I got that email eight days after I placed the order.

Again, thinking in retrospect, this might not be as grievous as I am making it sound; yesasia is an international exporter, and to be fair, the item did state that shipments for that item could be delayed by up to 21 days. Regardless, at the time I was understandably quite upset, so I sent them another customer service request demanding to know what had happened. Again, there was an email in my inbox the next day, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. Rather than a reply to my request, it told me that they had gone ahead and shipped the rest of my order, i.e. the CD. I don’t know if it would have shipped then anyway or of they were trying to make up for having to cancel one of my items, but for a while I thought that they believed the matter settled. Again, I was naturally quite upset. It felt as though that they had chosen to be done with my order rather than address my complaint.

Seeking answers, I discovered that they had a customer service phone number, so I decided to give them a call. I’ll admit, despite how angry I felt, I found their level of customer service impressive. The representative I spoke to couldn’t do anything to get my item for me, but he treated me with respect and was clearly trying to explain the situation to the best of his ability. He also informed me that the item “may” not be out of stock forever, but I’m not really going to get my hopes up.

It turns out, though, that today I did finally get a reply to me second request, which said essentially the same things that the representative had told me on the phone, but it there was one little footnote at the end of the reply that serves only to make this whole ordeal even more confusing:

“Moreover, according to our supplier, the item does not contain a DVD. ”

Wait, what? This contradicted both the previous reply I received and the item title itself, which I would have noticed had “dei vui dei” in it had I paid attention to it, not to mention that the Japanese title had “DVD” in it from the get-go, and that it Google-translates to “Omamori Himari Ultra Limited Edition with 6 DVD.” I’m inclined to think that the DVD is indeed included, but it hardly matters now, save for the off chance that they do get in back in stock at some point.

But that’s more than enough of my ranting. I want to emphasize that this is a single consumer’s opinion on a single order, and is in no way meant to be interpreted as a reflection of yesasia.com in general. Also, sorry for the text-heavy post; there wasn’t really much in the way of pictures for a topic like this.

And that’s about it for today. I have some stuff on order, and I’ll be sure to post about it when it comes in. Until then, though, thanks for reading. See you next time.

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2 Responses to “Yesasia.com Makes My Head Hurt”

Oh I’ve had your share of similar type of problems with YesAsia. They are kinda bad at letting you know about stuff, but the customer service is quite good that it’s hard to get very upset with them. I ordered a PSP game recently and then when I asked why it wasn’t here yet after a month it was shipped. They said it was lost and tried to send it again. A couple of months I waited, because I was lazy, but I finally emailed them again and they finally told me it was out of stock… WHAT!? Ok, yes, I’m upset, but at least after several months I ordered it they still responded and gave me store credit instead. I didn’t mind because there was something else I was going to get anyway. The free shipping really helps too. They’re somewhat reliable enough, so I keep using their service. It’s silly…